we're too similar, losing our minds
by Mrs. Elizabeth Gibbs
Summary: "We make each other alive. What does it matter if it hurts?"


A/N: It was time for a little angst with this ship. Parallels post-Bahrain May and post-New York Coulson. Some vague spoilers from Tuesday's episode. Title from Winter by Daughter.

Disclaimer: I own nothing

* * *

The Melinda May that comes back from Bahrain is not the Melinda May who left to go there.

His relationship with her had always been easy; they'd been fast friends, and falling into a relationship that was something more came as easy as breathing to them. He liked her in his bed, warm and pliant against him on Sunday mornings before she left to do tai chi; he liked watching her spar men twice her size and take them down in moments; he liked the way her eyebrows crinkled when she smiled at him.

The Melinda that made his coffee black with two sugars the way he liked it when she got up before him doesn't exist after Bahrain. The Melinda that comes back is quiet and smaller and has seemingly forgotten how to smile. She comes to his bed, but it isn't about love or comfort anymore; it's about feeling something- feeling anything.

He doesn't- can't- push her away. Not when there are moments when she looks at him like he's the only thing keeping her together. Not when she whimpers his name when she's asleep and clutches him closer.

Not when he's still so in love with her it hurts to breathe around her.

Something inside Melinda is broken, possibly irreversibly. Sometimes he catches her looking at her hands as though she'll never be able to wash them clean, and he doesn't know if there's even anything he can do to help her. So he lets her come to his bed, lets her find her peace atop him, lets her curl up against his chest and pretend he can't feel the hot tears that touch his skin.

"I'm leaving."

Her words are quiet, barely a whisper against his skin, but they sound like thunder in his ears. She'd collapsed beside him a few minutes ago, hair spilling over his arm as she pressed her cheek to his chest. There were no tears tonight, and he wonders if it's because she's found a different kind of a peace than the one his arms offer.

"I'm transferring out of active field duty," she continues voice still so soft it echoes in his ears. "It isn't the place for me anymore. There's so much blood on my hands now."

He remains silent, afraid if he opens his mouth he'll say words she can't hear anymore (_I love you I love you I love you _reverberates through his mind, but if he tells her that he'll lose her forever). So he just squeezes her shoulder and presses a kiss to her hair.

She always wakes before him, but somehow, he's awake before she even starts to stir the next morning. He remains still, though, as she dresses and gathers her things. She lingers for a moment, and when she leans down to press her lips to his forehead, he struggles not to move and alert her he's awake.

"I'm sorry it hurts to be here with you. I wish I was strong enough," she whispers, and he feels his eyes burn even behind his lids, his chest tight. Then she's gone, the door shutting quietly behind her, and he draws in a deep, shaking breath.

He's alone, and she's alive.

* * *

The Phil Coulson she meets after the battle of New York is the same as the Phil Coulson she left all those years ago.

Even knowing what had happened, what Fury had allowed to be done to Phil, she can't believe he'd died and come back the exact same way. She tries not to think about it; tries not to think about those days when he wasn't breathing and he was _dead_ and she hadn't known.

(She can still remember sharing a bad with him and pacing her breaths with his and the idea that there were hours, there were _days_ when he hadn't been breathing at all causes her chest to hurt.)

She doesn't mean to fall back into bed with him, but he still looks at her like she isn't broken or damaged and she hasn't felt that in so long that it's as simple as his fingers on her wrist and she's lost.

She walked away all those years ago because she didn't want to stain his skin with the blood on her hands, but it's different now- they're both darker, both harder, both older and sadder and it doesn't feel like her hands can mark him anymore. She is who she is and he is who he is- they can't change their past and their futures aren't those bright, shining things they were in the academy anymore.

They feel more complete this time around, but sometimes it hurts to look at him because he doesn't know that for a time he didn't have a future anymore and she's the only one who knows the truth behind the scars on his chest.

Things are different when SHIELD falls apart and the world feels like it might be ending. It's different when he looks at her like he can't trust her because through everything her faith in him is the only thing that's never wavered. Suddenly he's director and she's in charge of four kids who have had their worlds torn out from underneath them and it feels a little like she really has lost him after all, until he shows up in her room late one night, shaking and sweating and symbols carved into the wall in his office.

She gets him into the shower, cleans him up, and gets him into bed- she covers up the drawing on the wall after taking pictures, and when she returns to bed, just as the sun is peaking up over the hills, he's awake, waiting for her. He touches her like he's losing her, and it makes her chest ache because she could never leave him now.

"Sometimes I think this is the only thing that makes sense," he admits quietly one night, the wall repaired and their clothes on the ground. She has to get up to do tai chi with Skye soon, but she savors the few extra moments of his skin against hers, warm and solid on her right side. She turns her head to look at him, remaining quiet until he explains more. "I feel like I'm breaking, May. The only time I feel like I make sense is when I'm touching you."

She inhales, pain in her chest, because sometimes she feels that too, even though she doesn't want to. Coulson has always been her strength- he was solid and real, always there when she had doubts. He didn't leave after Bahrain, even though she was broken and fragile and not herself. He brought her back to herself even in her weakest moments, not matter how far away she was. She'd never meant to fall for him like this, to need him like this, but there's something about two souls so similar bonding to each other.

"We remind each other we're alive," she replies quietly, eyes on the rising sunbeams coming in through the blinds. "It hurts because it matters."

His lips are warm against her skin, and she thinks maybe she'll skip tai chi this morning.


End file.
